20 comments

[ 0.28 ms ] story [ 45.0 ms ] thread
Time to get some shrooms. I could really do with isolated psilocybin capsules though, the taste is terrible.
I am surprised no one ever mentions psilacetin. You should get it. It is essentially a pill form of psilocybin. It is psilocybin without the shroom matter.
Wonder if the extra lifespan time is larger than the extra time spent mentally incapacitated due to the effects of the drug.
5mg/kg? 1g of shrooms has something like 5-20mg of psilocybin. An equivalent human dose would seem to be 1.3-2.6g a day

Edit: Did the math wrong.

By how much does it actually extend it?

Vegetarians live 10 years longer than meat-eaters.

Some studies indicate that vegetarians may live an average of 6 to 10 years longer than meat-eaters, with some studies showing even larger differences for those who switch to a plant-based diet early in life.

the only catch is you eventually become a stage 3 guild navigator
Press release titles really need to say "in vitro" and/or "in mice" when the study was done only in vitro and/or in mice.
Nice. Although even if it shortened it, it would still be worth taking.
They feed us poison

so we take their 'cures'

while they suppress our medicine.

Two things.

First, please correct me if I'm wrong, but is it possible that the article made a mistake either in the dosages or the substance that was administered? It calls 5mg/kg of psilocybin a low dose. To me, this is an insanely high amount if we're really talking pure psilocybin (not psilocybin mushrooms). Johns Hopkins reported treating people with (high) therapeutic doses of psilocybin (not mushrooms) of between 20mg and 30mg per 70kg. In strictly mushroom weight, that's anything between 3g and 5g of dried cubensis. If the article is correct, what they administer those mice is the equivalent of giving a 70kg human 350mg of psilocybin (as a low dose lol), or about 50g-60g of dried mushrooms to munch on? I hope the article made a mistake, rather than someone from the research team misread the recommended dosage.

EDIT: According to my limited search, a 12-weeks old lab rat could weight anything between 0.25-0.5kg. At 5mg-15mg/kg, that's approximately 1.25-2.50mg for low doses of psilocybin and 3.75-7.5mg for high doses. I don't find this as outrageous as originally. It could work if we take into consideration that brain size is probably a more significant factor than body mass.

Second.

> this study suggests that psilocybin impacts multiple hallmarks of aging by reducing oxidative stress, improving DNA repair responses, and preserving telomere length. Telomeres are the structured ends of a chromosome, protecting it from damage that could lead to the formation of age-related diseases, such as cancer, neurodegeneration or cardiovascular disease. These foundational processes influence human aging and the onset of these chronic diseases.

Unless I misunderstand what I'm reading, I wouldn't say that it's really psilocybin (the chemical) that's responsible. It's the taking then subsequent tripping. It's now known that without the trip, no benefit. If my intuition is correct, it could be that LSD along with a few other psychedelics (and associated practices) might affect you in a similar way over the long run.

Can someone comment on why SSRIs wouldnt have a similar effect? The hypothesis seems to be seratonin affects aging. Does it matter where it comes from?
(comment deleted)
(comment deleted)
(comment deleted)
(comment deleted)
(comment deleted)
If anyone has yet to see it, there's a current show called "Common Side Effects" that has a similar vein of thought to this study (a mycologist discovers a mushroom capable of healing illnesses, wounds, and even restoring life to dead creatures, humans included). Highly recommend if you can get past it being animated.
Cool study. I really want to believe the results, but the effect on life extension is so large (see figure 2B) that I find it hard to. Maybe there was some uncontrolled confounding factor? It is noted in the 'Methods' section that 'Researchers were not blinded to group allocation [...]', which is unfortunate.